Uppsala RC, Taxikurir 2001-02-17

This was the second PTCC race in Uppsala for this season. The expectations before the race were high. My friend Jonas Nyrén, who has just recently made a comeback in R/C racing and allready won two races, wanted to take a win at his home track. I myself really wanted to win just to show Jonas that I'm still in the game. There were a lot of other good drivers attending this race too, like Gustav Dahlberg, Micke Brandt and Jonas Eriksson. Uppsala RC also has a lot of good, up and coming, drivers that are especially fast at this track. Sadly Marcus Berglund, who won the last event, didn't attend this race.

The day started with three rounds of qualifying practise. I tested a few things and ended up with my standard setup except for a tire inserts combination recommended by Anders Myrberg and a rear toe-in modification, giving less toe-in. The car felt safe and fast.

Qualifying

In the first round, I managed to set a 34 laps 5min0.3s to take pole, just 1.5s before Jonas N, Jonas E and Gustav.

In the second round Jonas N started with a very high pace, passing me after only a few laps. After that when following him, I got up to speed. He then made a few mistakes, which meant that I could pass him and get into the lead. At the end of the heat, I made a mistake and couldn't beat my first round time. The top four remained the same after the second round.

In the third and final round of qualifying Jonas N again took the lead, but he then made some mistakes and dropped down in the field. I had a better pace from the beginning this time and managed to take pole position with a 35 laps 5min8.5s run. Micke B had a good round and improved to third position. The A-final lineup looked like this:

TQ Arvid Stenberg, 2nd Jonas Nyrén, 3rd Micke Brandt, 4th Jonas Eriksson, 5th Gustav Dahlberg, 6th Roland Ström, 7th Niklas Johansson, 8th Jonas Glad

Finals

Tomas Ek took the overall win in the B-finals, before the hard fighting duo of Konrad Samuelsson and Magnus Modin.

In the first A-final I took the lead and eventually pull out a safe lead. After two or three minutes I made a mistake and Jonas N was right at my tail again. In the next corner I pushed wide so Jonas and I were scrubbing doors for the last hairpin before the straight. I had the inner line, but got bumped by him and spun out in the wrong direction and lost the lead. Bad luck for me, but that's racing. Jonas won the first main before me and Micke B.

In the second A-final I again took the lead, but I had problems to get up to speed and after a few laps I made a big mistake and lost several places. I managed to work my way up to third place, behind Jonas N and Micke B. Jonas Nyrén took the overall win after the two first mains.

The third A-final was a fight for second place. I held my postion in the start followed by Jonas N and Micke. Later on Jonas made a mistake and Micke was now second. I increased the distance to Micke, but at around four minutes I made a mistake and Micke closed up and were right behind me. It was a hard fight to the finish line which I won by a very small margin.

Congratulations to Jonas Nyrén who won the race before me and Micke. I would like to thank Uppsala RC for a great event without any problems and with a really good atmosphere.

/ Arvid Stenberg

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